He's no mechanic, but his business fixes autos

June 24, 2007

Tom Nufer's desire to own an automobile repair garage, Dave's Garage, 2900 S. Main, South Bend, materialized eight years ago. So he resigned from a company he had served 32 years, even though Nufer doesn't repair cars. But, he says, there's a reason he runs the business instead of works on the cars. Nufer recently talked with Tribune correspondent Jennifer Ochstein about why someone who doesn't repair vehicles would buy a garage. You were previously in sales - how did you get in the garage business? Dave's Garage came up for sale and the owner was one of my customers. So, I decided to get out of the sales business and into the garage business. I worked in outside sales for Ridge Co. for 27 years. I called on garages, municipalities and fleets (to sell auto parts). I worked for them for 32 years, but I was in outside sales for 27 years. Why did you want to switch from a life in sales to garage owner? The best reason was to be my own boss and to control my own destiny. And it's rewarding, too. What's rewarding about it? Customer appreciation. Customers appreciate what you do for them. I have a large customer base, and I take very good care of my customers. We're a NAPA AutoCare Center, and that's been extremely beneficial. Do you have any desire to work on cars? It's impossible for a business owner to run a garage, work on cars and have a successful garage. He has to supervise, work to gather parts and work with customers. You can only do one well, you can't do both well. What is a typical day like for you at the garage? Hectic. My daughter, who works with me, works the front desk and answers phones. I do estimates. I do billing. I contact customers and explain what's wrong with their cars and then get approval to fix the problem. I locate most of the parts. I take customers home and pick them up. It's the service that helps keep the business going. What I do all day is solve problems. How difficult was the transition from sales to becoming a small-business owner? It took me about a year to feel really comfortable with it. Don't get me wrong. The business was up and going and had a customer base, but I've increased the client base by 30 percent to 40 percent. We do that through advertising on radio and television. ... We're very consistent with our advertising policy. Was that one of your goals -- to increase the customer base? You have to be goal oriented and never be satisfied with what you're currently doing. We're not a specialty garage. We do heavy diagnostics and light diagnostics and heavy repair and light repair, anywhere from oil changes to engine changes. We try not to give the customer a reason to go anywhere else. What aspects of your career in sales prepared you for what you do now? Dealing with the public. I'm very good at dealing with people. Once we got through the transition, it wasn't any different dealing with people and explaining what their problems are and then trying to solve the problem. That's what I did with Ridge Co. -- try to solve problems. Did you expect you'd ever own a garage? If the opportunity arose. I'd been looking into it for my last six months in sales. Why? I'd been in sales 27 years. Ridge Co. was an excellent place to work. I just got burned out. When you do something for a long period of time you just get tired. I was looking for new challenges. What's the best part of your job? Taking care of customers and exceeding their expectations. How do you work to exceed their expectations? I go the extra mile. I've got dozens of stories of taking care of customers. When someone asks me how they know they're going to a good garage, I tell them if something goes wrong. It's what you do when something goes wrong. That's how you judge them. The best way to keep customers happy is to be honest and tell the truth -- being honest and taking care of their concerns. I had one customer, and we replaced the alternator in her car. She was on the Toll Road and her car broke down. She called me and told me what happened, and there were people who were kind enough to help her. I arranged to get her car towed, and when we looked at it, we found that we forgot to plug the alternator back in. I left her a message telling her what happened and to bring her receipts because I would pay for all the expenses -- the rental car, having her car towed. She called me the next day -- she'd been going to Chicago with her girlfriends. She said she and her girlfriends played the message half a dozen times. She said, 'I can't believe you were honest.' Now all her girlfriends come here to get their cars worked on. You have to admit it and take care of the problem. Luckily that doesn't happen very often. I've never lost a customer over a mistake because I've admitted it and we've done the work to fix it. What's your least favorite part of your job? Telling customers that it's time to shoot their car -- the amount of the repairs exceeds the value of the car -- because sometimes they don't have money for a new car. I could lie, but I know they would come back upset because I took their money. Honestly, people appreciate it, but it's turning business down because I refuse to work on their car. But I look at it as good future business. Do you have any advice for others who are considering becoming an automobile repair garage owner or small-business owner? Don't go into it blindly. It's important to have the knowledge about what you desire to do. If you want to own a garage -- I had excellent training from what I did at Ridge. But my family owns several businesses -- Burton's Laundromats, Parkwood Auto Spa -- and they knew the business. You have to have an entrepreneurial spirit and know the business you want to go into. Garages fail all the time because they're started by mechanics who think they're being taken advantage of by a garage owner. But you shouldn't work on cars because you can lose business. You can't take care of customers when you have grease up to your elbows.